INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY : Tuesday 4th July 2023.

I saw the M Rated 'INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY' earlier this week. This long awaited and highly anticipated American action adventure film is Co-Written and Directed by James Mangold, whose previous film making credits take in his 1995 debut with 'Heavy' followed by the likes of 'Cop Land' in 1997, 'Girl, Interrupted' in 1999, 'Walk the Line' in 2005, '3:10 to Yuma' in 2007, 'The Wolverine' in 2013, 'Logan' in 2017 and 'Ford v Ferrari' in 2019. This film is the sequel to 2008's 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' and the fifth and final instalment in this five feature film franchise that began in 1981 with 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', then 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' in 1984 and 1989's 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'. Those first four films grossed worldwide US$1.99B off the back of combined production budgets of US$279M with each of those films being Directed by Steven Spielberg, who this time around takes an Executive Producer credit. With an estimated production budget of approaching US$300M it is the most expensive film in the Indiana Jones franchise, as well as one of the most expensive films ever made. The film saw its World Premiere showcasing at the Cannes Film Festival in mid-May where it received a five minute standing ovation, and was released worldwide last week, having so far grossed US$165M and garnered mixed or average reviews.

The film opens in 1944 during the WWII Allied liberation of Europe. Nazis capture Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford in his fifth and final outing as Indy) and Oxford archeologist Basil Shaw (Toby Jones), as they attempt to retrieve the holy Lance of Longinus at Nuremberg Castle - considered to be a most important artifact for Hitler. Astrophysicist Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) informs his Nazi superiors that the Lance is in fact fake, made of an alloy and probably no more than fifty years old, but instead he has found half of Archimedes' Dial, an Antikythera mechanism built by the ancient Syracusan mathematician Archimedes. An astronomical calculator, it leads users to fissures in time. 

Voller's superior scoffs at the importance of the Dial saying that no one has ever heard of it, so how can it be so important. Jones escapes onto a Nazi train filled with a cargo of looted antiquities. He frees Basil and, after fighting Voller on the roof top of the speeding train at which Voller gets knocked off when he stands upright just as the train passes a signal, obtains the Dial-half. He and Basil leap from the train as it passes over a viaduct into the river below, just before the Allies bomb it.

We then fast track twenty-five years later to New York City in 1969. Jones, about to retire from his teaching job at Hunter College where he has been for the past ten years, has also been separated from his wife Marion since their son, Mutt, died in combat in the Vietnam War. Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Jones' goddaughter whom he has not seen for eighteen years, turns up one day unannounced paying him a visit. She is now also an archeologist, and is researching the Dial, but Jones warns how her late father, Basil, nearly went insane after years of trying to unlock its secrets. Basil reluctantly gave Jones the Dial to destroy it, but he never did, instead keeping it safely hidden in the archives of Hunter College. 

As Jones and Helena retrieve the Dial-half from the college's archives, Voller's henchmen attack them. Voller, now works for NASA under a new identity, and is assisted by a CIA group led by Agent Mason (Shaunette Renee Wilson). Unknown to Jones, Helena sells illegal antiquities to the highest bidder. She escapes with the Dial-half, exposing her intention to auction it on the black market in Morocco. Jones flees into a ticker-tape parade celebrating the Apollo 11 astronauts moon landing, and then an anti-Vietnam war protest, before escaping through the New York City Subway system on horseback. He seeks out his old friend Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), now a NYC cab driver. 

In Tangier, Jones prevents Helena from auctioning the Dial-half off to a bunch of would-be purchasers. Voller and his henchmen (Boyd Holbrook, Olivier Richters and Martin McDougall) arrive and steal the Dial, forcing Jones, Helena, and her teenage sidekick, Teddy Kumar (Ethann Isidore), to join forces and pursue them in an auto tuk tuk. After a frenetic chase through the side streets and alleyways of Tangier, Agent Mason apprehends Voller, who appears to have his own agenda. The US government, now reject Voller, want him neutralised, but Voller's men kill the CIA agents, including Mason, and steal their helicopter.

Jones, Helena, and Teddy trail Voller to Greece and team up with Jones's deep-sea diver friend, Renaldo (Antonio Banderas). They retrieve a 'graphikos' tablet from an ancient sunken ship in the Aegean Sea, made of wood and coated in wax with ancient inscriptions written upon the wax surface. Jones notices that the tablet is too heavy to be just wood and wax and so burns off the wax revealing a gold dial that contains cryptic directions to the Dial's other half. Voller kills Renaldo and Jones's group escape on board Voller's motorboat and head off to Archimedes's tomb in Sicily.

Inside a meandering cave system, Jones and Helena locate the tomb after negotiating several dangerous and unpleasant obstacles along the way. They uncover Archimedes skeletal remains which is clutching the second half of the Dial and Indy also observes that the skeleton is also holding a present day wrist watch, to which he remarks that timepieces hadn't been invented for another thousand years. Voller and his henchmen meanwhile are in hot pursuit and eventually catch up with Jones and capture him shooting him in the shoulder. Voller then reconnects the two halves of the Dial together and reveals his plan to travel back in time to 1939, to kill Adolf Hitler, and lead Germany to victory in World War II, having witnessed all the mistakes that Hitler made in his war efforts. Voller activates the Dial to open a time fissure and sets a flight course. Jones is held captive and bundled onto a plane, while Helena has sneaked on board by clambering through the landing gear. Meanwhile Teddy steals a light aircraft and pursues them through the opening.

When approaching the eye of the opening the plane begins to rattle, moving objects around uncontrollably. Jones observes this and comments that Voller's plan to land back in 1939 doesn't account for Continental Drift which wouldn't have been factored in when Archimedes lived, and so rather than arriving in 1939, the time fissure instead leads to the 212BC Siege of Syracuse. Roman warriors shoot projectiles at the approaching plane, believing it to be a dragon. Jones and Helena parachute out before it crashes, killing all on board, including Voller. Meanwhile, Teddy's plane lands safely with the aid of the sleeping owner who was woken up by the events unfolding. Helena observes the fissure is closing and urges they leave immediately. Archimedes arrives having seen the parachute, inspects the wreckage and finds Voller's burned and dead body and is captivated by his wristwatch. He gives Jones the Dial but is fascinated by the watch and keeps it. Jones and Helena learn that Archimedes created the Dial solely to bring users from the future to 212BC to aid the Greeks. As the fissure begins collapsing, Helena insists on getting the Hell outta Dodge. Jones, who is wounded, wants to remain behind saying his has nothing to return to, and he has studied this time period all his life. Fearing he may not survive or could change the course of history, Helena knocks him out cold with a single punch.

Jones comes round in his apartment back in 1969 with his shoulder heavily bandaged. He is greeted by Helena, Teddy, Sallah, and also Marion (Karen Allen), who has returned from the shops with bags full of groceries to restock his meagre supplies and to aid in his recovery. Helena, Teddy, Sallah and his two young children leave to go get ice cream, so that Jones and Marion can talk alone, and make up their differences. 

'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' is entertaining enough and you're almost guaranteed a good time at the movies, but it lacks the bravura and the necessary spark that were the touchstones of its four predecessors. Director James Mangold certainly knows how to lay on the action set pieces, but here he lurches from one straight into another, and then another, followed by more of the same without too much regard for the script or exposition. Harrison Ford turns in a fine performance in the titular role, Phoebe Waller-Bridge certainly holds her own and Mads Mikkelsen as the antagonist of the piece is as menacing as he ever was albeit in an understated way. It is a fitting end to this movie franchise which has given us one of the most endearing screen characters of the last forty or so years that sees Indy and Marion reconcile and finally settle into their retirement. Amen to that!

'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-